


Bedside Manners

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Minor speculation, Multi, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Finn stays asleep, and one time Rey and Poe pay him back in kind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedside Manners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tywinning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/gifts).



> Just a little something that's been bubbling away in the back of my mind since I saw the movie last week. I've never written Star Wars before, really, so here's hoping this works!
> 
> For Lauren, who Gets Me.

**1.**

A medidroid stops Rey when she tries to walk into Finn's room.

Since General Organa and Master Skywalker are locked away in a room on the other side of the base, since she's not training for the first time since she met the Master, she had intended on visiting Finn. He's the only friend she has, except BB-8 and, through him and Finn,  _kind_ of Finn's friend, Poe the Pilot. 

But the medidroid stops her, and Rey nearly jumps out of her skin at the touch of the robot's hand on her wrist, because it feels how she imagines Master Skywalker's prosthesis would, if he didn't avoid so much as the hem of his robes brushing against her boots.

"It has been advised that you not visit Mr. Finn until a thorough assessment has been made of his psyche, upon waking," the droid says, in that quiet, soothing voice all medidroids are programmed with. "It is believed that any reminders of his recent trauma may set his recovery back exponentially, Miss Rey."

Rey doesn't say that simply waking up on a Resistance base is likely to remind Finn of his _recent trauma._ Instead, she takes up a post on a high stool behind a pane of mirrored glass, seeing but unseen, and watches as her friend opens his eyes for the first time since Kylo damn Ren laid him low.

"So it  _is_ real," Finn says, just loud enough that she can hear him, and then he falls asleep - natural sleep, not drugged, and he snores like a Wookie just to prove it.

**2.**

Poe doesn't know if it's because Rey trusts him, or because General Organa trusts him, or because he's just that good - but he's the only one Master Skywalker trusts to venture on these odd little missions with him.

They visit... Strange planets. Swamps and snows and smooth, red sands, that remind him of Rey's Jakku, and Master Skywalker's sadness seems to deepen with every one of them. Poe likes to see more of the galaxy, of course he does, but even his perennially good mood gets it hard to linger in the face of the greatest hero of the Resistance seeming more downtrodden with every lightyear they travel.

He talks to Finn about Master Skywalker, because he isn't supposed to talk to anyone, really, but Finn is asleep most of the time and so he probably can't hear a thing Poe is saying, anyways.

He always seems to miss the rare times Finn  _is_ awake - the medidroids always let him knows he's missed them, too, and he starts to worry that maybe Finn is pretending to be asleep when Poe drops by, and it takes Rey, who seems a little unsure of even talking to Poe, to clear things up.

"Fighting Kylo Ren was harder on him than on me," she explains, and when Poe moves to point out the obvious -  _she_ came out of it with a lightsabre and a purpose,  _Finn_ came out of it with some intense scaring and a lot of baggage - she silences him with a look. "His mind may... Hurt. I don't fully understand it, but Master Skywalker-"

"Pardon me, Miss Rey," C-3PO chimes in, appearing around a corner before Rey can tell Poe just want Master Skywalker has said or done, "but Generals Organa and Skywalker wish to see both you and Flight Commander Dameron at once."

Master Skywalker being named  _General_ distracts Poe for just long enough that he forgets to wait around for Finn to wake up, and he almost -  _almost_ \- loses his temper with the medidroid who tells him he missed his friend  _again._

**3.**

Rey always goes to Finn's room before she goes to her own when she and Master Luke arrive back at the base. 

Usually, it's empty except for a droid or two, but sometimes, she finds Poe.

She still doesn't know what to make of Flight Commander Poe Dameron, Black Leader, hero of the Resistance, but she's learning. She thinks, maybe, that she might like him. General Organa trusts him with her life, and Master Luke trusts in General Organa's trust. Rey has learned to have a similar sort of faith, a faith she's never had before in anyone or anything except her own two hands and Finn, which means she knows that Poe is at least  _safe._

He's also charming, though, which makes her nervous. No one has ever tried to charm her before - Jakku just isn't that sort of planet, and everyone knows that she's Master Skywalker's padawan, and so she's kind of off-limits for flirting. 

Jedi aren't supposed to have emotional attachments, after all. Everyone who knows anything about the old stories knows that.

But Poe is charming not because he wants to get into her bed, or because he thinks that by charming her he might gain influence with Master Luke - he has plenty of influence with General Organa, and one twin is more than enough for anyone to handle. Poe is charming simply because he  _is,_ and that more than anything is what confuses Rey.

Finn never tried to be charming, and she liked him all the more for it - his charm was entirely accidental, simply a question of her enjoying his company enough to try to figure out how a  _friend_ might fit into her life in some meaningful way.

Poe does try, though, more effectively than she'd like - silly things, like the way he presses a fist over his heart when he sees her take Finn's hand, or serious things, like the way he coaxes the truth of what she remembers of the day her family left her behind.

(Master Luke's voice is sometimes more familiar than it should be. This, she tells no one, except for Finn, while he sleeps.)

She never catches Finn awake, but sometimes, while she and Poe are laughing, she thinks that she sees Finn smile, and wonders if maybe he's just pretending.

**4.**

"Your friend, the stormtrooper boy," General Organa says one day, out of the blue. "How is he?"

Poe is completely unsure of just how to answer - should he correct her on calling Finn  _the stormtrooper boy?_ Leia Organa is not a woman to forget anyone's name, particularly not the name of someone who helped so much to strike a blow against the Order, who flew with General Solo, who fought Kylo Ren.

(There are rumours, there are  _always_ rumours, but Poe knows that these ones are true, for once. He knows that Kylo Ren is the same boy he sometimes saw playing in the corner while General Organa discussed attack plans with his mother. He knew Ben Solo a little, when they were kids, and wonders how such a sweet boy could have fallen so far to the Dark.)

"Finn is well," he says cautiously. "The medical staff say that he's progressing well physically, but they are a little worried about him in other regards."

"I hear," she says, "that he's never awake when you or Rey visit him?"

For a second, Poe can't help but wonder if maybe Rey has confided in General Skywalker, and Skywalker in General Organa, or if maybe General Organa has more of her brother's affinity for the Force than anyone realises.

"He told me," she says, "that he's sorry for letting you both down, and wonders if you might move on if he keeps sleeping when you visit."

The idea of General Organa sitting at Finn's bedside for a heart-to-heart makes Poe laugh, which draws a smile from her sad eyes.

"Speak to my brother's apprentice," she suggests, patting Poe's hand and smiling. "She is wiser than she knows, and understands more than she thinks."

Finn, according to the medidroid who greets Poe at the door of his room, has only just fallen back to sleep, and needs plenty of rest - he's been learning to walk again these past few days, and it's been exhausting him.

Poe swears so much on the way back to his room that BB beeps admonitions at him, and he doesn't even care.

**5.**

"He's my father, Finn," Rey says, so softly she doesn't think he'd hear her even if he was awake. "I know it, I can  _feel_ it, but he doesn't seem to care. Why doesn't he  _care,_ Finn?"

Poe's hands on her shoulders make her jump - Master Luke would tell her to be more aware of her surroundings - but then they're a comfort, warm and worn against her bare skin, the weight of them grounding her just as it feels like she might drown in confusion and hurt and the vastness of the Force.

"He does care," Poe says quietly. "You can see it every time he looks at you - I've flown enough combat missions with you both to know it better than anyone, except maybe General Organa."

"He doesn't see me as anything more than a student," she says bitterly, one hand lifting to cover Poe's just as the other covers Finn's. "He abandoned me, Poe, for  _years_. How is  _that_ caring?"

"Maybe," Poe says, sounding thoughtful, "he didn't want to disappoint you, and hoped you'd forget about him."

"That's  _stupid,"_ she says, the anger Master Luke always warns her about bubbling hot behind her breastbone. "I  _love_ him, he's my  _father-"_

"But he's afraid," Poe says, moving to sit beside her, taking both of her hands in his and looking her straight in the eye. His eyes are dark, and deep, and warm, and Rey holds on tight to his strong fingers.

"I'm afraid all the time," Rey says, finding that she's brave, too, and leaning forward to press her face into the tuck of Poe's neck and shoulder. "But I don't let that stop me."

Finn doesn't open his eyes, and that makes Rey angry - is he  _afraid,_ too? She's seen him afraid of all sorts of things, but he's never  _hidden_ like this, and it makes her  _mad._

**+1.**

Finn opens his eyes once he's sure Rey and Poe are asleep.

They spend most of their evenings in his room, when they're on base, and he's glad of it - he might want them to go away, to forget about him, but he also wants to keep them close. All the time. Even when it's inconvenient.

Princess Leia told him that they're worried for him, and General Skywalker told him that his attempts to turn them away are instead bringing them closer, but he still can't quite bring himself to face them.

He failed, after all. He was supposed to save Poe, but Poe saved himself. He was supposed to protect Rey, but she ended up protecting  _him._ And all he got for his troubles was a stupid scar across his back and a lot of pain.

Rey and Poe are curled half-together, in two chairs but sprawling towards one another. They've both got a hand on the bed, Rey's covering Finn's and Poe's somewhere near Finn's knee, and the fear that seems to hide in Finn's chest, where Rey carries her anger and Poe carries his worry, fades away for just a little while.

"Hey," he says, nudging Rey's fingers, bucking Poe's hand. "Hey, wake up,  _hey-"_

"Hey yourself," Rey grumbles, shifting in her chair and moving a little closer to Poe - Finn wants to be jealous, but he isn't sure who to be jealous  _of_ \- while she twists her fingers together with Finn's. "We can talk in the morning. You should sleep some."

Poe opens one dark, bright eye, smiles a little, and tips his head back into sleep, just like that. Rey isn't far behind him, tucked under his arm like that, but Finn stays awake a little longer.

Rey and Poe look good together, even in the sterile light of the medbay. Finn could get used to looking at them, just like this, without any distractions.

 


End file.
